Jon Kyl, the number two Senate Republican leader before retiring in January, has quickly become an advisor to influence powerhouse Covington & Burlington, a firm that has spent nearly $100 million lobbying in the nation's capital, Sunlight's Influence Explorer shows. Kyl will be joining a bipartisan stable of heavy hitters that includes Stuart Eizenstat, a top official in the Carter and Clinton administrations, and Senate parliamentary wizard Marty Gold.
Technically, the powerful Arizonan will of course not be "lobbying." U.S. statute (relevant section here) prohibits former senators from lobbying their ex-colleagues for two years.
As Sunlight has documented ...
Continue readingNo sequester for political ads
In honor of the snowquester, as the Washington Post's cheeky Weather Gang has dubbed the spring storm that so far has proven more effective than the Tea Party in reining in government, Sunlight has decided to take a look at the efforts getting underway by various groups to keep the actual sequester at bay.
Like the Atlantic snowstorm, this effort is starting slowly but likely to build.
The Sunlight Reporting Group is using two of our foundation's tools, Ad Hawk and Political Ad Sleuth, to keep an eye on this year's political ads. We'll be updating ...
Continue readingIdeas to Bring Influence Out of the Shadows
This week has been filled with news about the influence industry. From high profile staffers moving through the revolving door, to Supreme Court consideration of another attempt to deregulate campaign finance, to outrage over the new Obama affiliated group, political influence is pervasive. Luckily, there are always groups thinking about ways to shed light on this influence. At a recent Advisory Committee on Transparency event three groups presented ideas to shed light on lobbyists and nonprofit groups that attempt to influence the political process.
Continue readingExxonMobil lobbies consumer agency on phthalates
Under heavy lobbying by ExxonMobil and other industry heavyweights, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is nearly a year late with a mandated report on the possible dangers found in chemicals used to create plastic products from raincoats to "rubber" duck bath toys to shampoo. A Sunlight review of the public record shows how outgunned consumer advocates are by industry.
Continue readingPro-gun interests hire new lobbyists
Three pro-gun interests have hired lobbyists, according to registration statements filed with the Senate Monday and last week, in the face of a push by Congress to introduce new gun control measures in the wake of the December massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
That includes two companies -- a Virginia firearms importer called Red, White and Blue LLC and Dick's Sporting Goods, a national chain that sells firearms, according to registrations filed Monday. Another group, the National Association for Gun Rights, has registered a lobbyist for the first time too, according to documents filed last week.
These registrations come on the ...
Continue readingObama visits GOP givers to make a point about sequestration
When President Barack Obama travels Tuesday to the historic Newport News Shipbuilding facility to make a point about the potential damage from the looming sequestration axe, he'll be making a political point in more ways than one.
In a sense, he's reminding Republican budget hawks that they could be biting a hand that feeds them. The employees and political action committee of Newport News Shipbuilding have given more generously to Republican politicians than to Democrats over the years, the company's profile on Sunlight's Influence Explorer shows.
A search for contributions to the president's campaigns by ...
Continue readingTop government contractors spend less than a penny on politics for every dollar at stake in sequester
With the sequestration deadline rapidly approaching, one set of companies has more at stake than any other, at least in terms of sheer dollars: big government contractors. By our count, the ten biggest government contractors would stand to lose roughly $13.6 billion in contracts if the across-the-board 9.4 percent cuts to discretionary defense spending cuts were applied equally across their 2012 contract award amounts. Compare that to the $115 million they spent on lobbying and campaigns, and that investment in politics starts to look like a bargain. And if that political investment helps to avoid the proposed cuts and keep these companies' contracting revenues stable, that would amount to a 125-to-1 return for these 10 companies, on average.
Al Jazeera lands heavyweight Republican lobbyist
Tom Korologos, a Republican so admired by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that he's been called "the 101st senator," is going to lobby for Al Jazeera.
Continue readingCould sequester hit Israel?
When John Kerry takes the stage at the University of Virginia today to deliver his first major address as secretary of state, he'll be making a plea for one of the spending areas likely to draw the least amount of sympathy when the sequester axe hits. In a letter to the Senate, Kerry warned that foreign aid may have to absorb a $2.6 billion hit if a deal to avert the automatic budget cuts isn't reached.
While money U.S. taxpayers sent overseas might be considered a rare appealing target for the budget axe since there is ...
Continue readingAs sequester nears, Northrop Grumman looks and lobbies for new markets
Image released by the United States Air Force
The looming sequester--across-board-cuts in defense and domestic discretionary spending that Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to in 2011--was the subject in opening remarks at an unusual press briefing offered by officals of Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor that could see its business shrink along with the Pentagon budget.
In 2012, Northrop Grumman ranked tenth among U.S. contractors with $4.2 billion in awards mostly from the Pentagon, data in USASpending.gov shows. And according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Northrop Grumman ranked as the tenth largest spender on ...
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